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: this property should be used only with the listed qualifiers. (
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Error reports
See en:Wikipedia:VIAF/errors. Please note that VIAF retrieves Wikidata mappings periodically and rebuilds their clusters based on that (at least for items about persons). VIAF identifiers can be merged based on that or component moved to other VIAF identifiers.
Ideally this information should be moved to the item for the reference and be transcluded from there.
| Error type | Item(s) affected | Description/Duplicates | Exception | Reported | Resolved (also unpublished) | Resolved and published | Wikidata updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Our Lady of Victory Church (Q1280925) | The VIAF ID is linking to the wrong item, it's for something in a completely different country. VIAF originally had a different (probably correct) ID but changed it for some reason. | ||||||
| Manoel Theatre (Q576800) | The item has two IDs which should be merged. The BIBSYS ID linked from 289802221 is wrong. |
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Pattern ^([1-9]\d{1,8}|[1-9]\d{18,21})\/$ will be automatically replaced to \1. Testing: TODO list |
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So along the other changes, it seems now that IDs are completely retired and don't redirect to other clusters (example). I hope this is just temporary, otherwise it's a really bad idea. --Jahl de Vautban (talk) 17:31, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
- +1. Same happend to withdrawn identifier value (Q21441764). These IDs are gone and we can't see if the ID was an error or withdrawn. (Sometimes, possibility 3, it's just a delay in retrieval.) Not a good working condition. --Kolja21 (talk) 18:08, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
- Yes, both redirected and abandoned clusters seem to have been superseded by a generic "Page or resource not found!" i.e. error 404; the same error also happens when one searches for a VIAF ID which never existed. This is highly problematic as it doesn't ensure that the cluster IDs are permanent (they have never been, but at least with redirected and abandoned clusters it was easy to reconstruct the mutations ...). Epìdosis 18:15, 18 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Since VIAF clusters are not stable we should add that retrieved (P813) is required. --Kolja21 (talk) 04:32, 1 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
- Context: as of now we have 3.607 M VIAF cluster ID (P214) statements (https://qlever.cs.uni-freiburg.de/wikidata/ztSCgc) and 1.795 M statements have a reference whatsoever (https://qlever.cs.uni-freiburg.de/wikidata/mK6zmZ), so about half; the reference contains retrieved (P813) in 1.191 M statements (https://qlever.cs.uni-freiburg.de/wikidata/YZxlNr).
- Out of 15.1 k deprecated VIAF IDs (https://qlever.cs.uni-freiburg.de/wikidata/ApuKby), 8.8 k have a reference (https://qlever.cs.uni-freiburg.de/wikidata/d6Fc2q) and specifically 8.2 k have a reference with retrieved (P813) (https://qlever.cs.uni-freiburg.de/wikidata/utzgNo).
- I think P813 on deprecated clusters is very useful and in the last months I started using it systematically; for non-deprecated clusters I think it would be a good idea in principle, but I'm unsure about its feasibility, unless we decide e.g. that a bot passes and adds it on the basis of the page history (but would it be really worth?). Epìdosis 10:26, 1 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
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Notified participants of WikiProject Data Quality As many know, our coverage of VIAF on items that are not instance of (P31)human (Q5) is very bad, both in terms of low coverage and of imprecise coverage; many "Geographic Names" and "Corporate Names" VIAF clusters are conflated and this doesn't help, but also in the case of good clusters, the Wikidata items linking to them are often plainly wrong, and this usually depends on a (present or past) wrong clusterization by VIAF itself. A good way to spot wrong matches is looking at some items which should never, or almost never, link to VIAF: I have cleaned in the last days more than 60 cases of P214 in items being instance of (P31)Mars crater (Q1475691), all completely wrong (some examples: Ome, Aki, Swanage, Maidstone), and I have moved them to the correct item if easily understandable (in most of the cases, fortunately, it was easy). I will report here other cleaned instances. --Epìdosis 19:11, 8 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
- Cleaned also more than 40 items with instance of (P31)cardinal title (Q1092939) (examples: San Luigi dei Francesi, San Paolo alle Tre Fontane, Santa Maria in Portico Campitelli). --Epìdosis 23:36, 8 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
- Cleaned also more than 100 case of P214 on items being instance of (P31) of crater (Q3240715) or its recursive subclasses outside Earth, i.e. on items having located on astronomical body (P376) (examples: Con, Menzel, Bran); only 5 cases are effectively correct (https://w.wiki/C$FK). Epìdosis 10:24, 9 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hi,
I've tried to correct the search formatter URL (P4354) URL, but it don't work. I don't understand what is the problem. Simon Villeneuve (talk) 10:52, 24 April 2025 (UTC)Reply
I leave here some queries regarding the usage of VIAF as reference for non-external-ID properties (ideally, VIAF should be substituted by non-aggregator references, such as the IDs extracted from it):